Sarcasm on the internet is "broken" sometimes. I'm not sure what to say. It has to be someone taking the piss .... right?

http://www.firstthings.com/onthesquare/?p=1329

How Soccer is Ruining America: A Jeremiad

By Stephen H. Webb
Thursday, March 5, 2009, 12:00 AM

Soccer is running America into the ground, and there is very little anyone can do about it. Social critics have long observed that we live in a therapeutic society that treats young people as if they can do no wrong. Every kid is a winner, and nobody is ever left behind, no matter how many times they watch the ball going the other way. Whether the dumbing down of America or soccer came first is hard to say, but soccer is clearly an important means by which American energy, drive, and competitiveness is being undermined to the point of no return.

What other game, to put it bluntly, is so boring to watch? (Bowling and golf come to mind, but the sound of crashing pins and the sight of the well-attired strolling on perfectly kept greens are at least inherently pleasurable activities.) The linear, two-dimensional action of soccer is like the rocking of a boat but without any storm and while the boat has not even left the dock. Think of two posses pursuing their prey in opposite directions without any bullets in their guns. Soccer is the fluoridation of the American sporting scene.

For those who think I jest, let me put forth four points, which is more points than most fans will see in a week of games—and more points than most soccer players have scored since their pee-wee days.

1) Any sport that limits you to using your feet, with the occasional bang of the head, has something very wrong with it. Indeed, soccer is a liberal’s dream of tragedy: It creates an egalitarian playing field by rigorously enforcing a uniform disability. Anthropologists commonly define man according to his use of hands. We have the thumb, an opposable digit that God gave us to distinguish us from animals that walk on all fours. The thumb lets us do things like throw baseballs and fold our hands in prayer. We can even talk with our hands. Have you ever seen a deaf person trying to talk with their feet? When you are really angry and acting like an animal, you kick out with your feet. Only fools punch a wall with their hands. The Iraqi who threw his shoes at President Bush was following his primordial instincts. Showing someone your feet, or sticking your shoes in someone’s face, is the ultimate sign of disrespect. Do kids ever say, “Trick or Treat, smell my hands”? Did Jesus wash his disciples’ hands at the Last Supper? No, hands are divine (they are one of the body parts most frequently attributed to God), while feet are in need of redemption. In all the portraits of God’s wrath, never once is he pictured as wanting to step on us or kick us; he does not stoop that low.

2) Sporting should be about breaking kids down before you start building them up. Take baseball, for example. When I was a kid, baseball was the most popular sport precisely because it was so demanding. Even its language was intimidating, with bases, bats, strikes, and outs. Striding up to the plate gave each of us a chance to act like we were starring in a Western movie, and tapping the bat to the plate gave us our first experience with inventing self-indulgent personal rituals. The boy chosen to be the pitcher was inevitably the first kid on the team to reach puberty, and he threw a hard ball right at you.

Thus, you had to face the fear of disfigurement as well as the statistical probability of striking out. The spectacle of your failure was so public that it was like having all of your friends invited to your home to watch your dad forcing you to eat your vegetables. We also spent a lot of time in the outfield chanting, “Hey batter batter!” as if we were Buddhist monks on steroids. Our chanting was compensatory behavior, a way of making the time go by, which is surely why at soccer games today it is the parents who do all of the yelling.

3) Everyone knows that soccer is a foreign invasion, but few people know exactly what is wrong with that. More than having to do with its origin, soccer is a European sport because it is all about death and despair. Americans would never invent a sport where the better you get the less you score. Even the way most games end, in sudden death, suggests something of an old-fashioned duel. How could anyone enjoy a game where so much energy results in so little advantage, and which typically ends with a penalty kick out, as if it is the audience that needs to be put out of its misery. Shootouts are such an anticlimax to the game and are so unpredictable that the teams might as well flip a coin to see who wins—indeed, they might as well flip the coin before the game, and not play at all.

4) And then there is the question of gender. I know my daughter will kick me when she reads this, but soccer is a game for girls. Girls are too smart to waste an entire day playing baseball, and they do not have the bloodlust for football. Soccer penalizes shoving and burns countless calories, and the margins of victory are almost always too narrow to afford any gloating. As a display of nearly death-defying stamina, soccer mimics the paradigmatic feminine experience of childbirth more than the masculine business of destroying your opponent with insurmountable power.

Let me conclude on a note of despair appropriate to my topic. There is no way to run away from soccer, if only because it is a sport all about running. It is as relentless as it is easy, and it is as tiring to play as it is tedious to watch. The real tragedy is that soccer is a foreign invasion, but it is not a plot to overthrow America. For those inclined toward paranoia, it would be easy to blame soccer’s success on the political left, which, after all, worked for years to bring European decadence and despair to America. The left tried to make existentialism, Marxism, post-structuralism, and deconstructionism fashionable in order to weaken the clarity, pragmatism, and drive of American culture. What the left could not accomplish through these intellectual fads, one might suspect, they are trying to accomplish through sport.

Yet this suspicion would be mistaken. Soccer is of foreign origin, that is certainly true, but its promotion and implementation are thoroughly domestic. Soccer is a self-inflicted wound. Americans have nobody to blame but themselves. Conservative suburban families, the backbone of America, have turned to soccer in droves. Baseball is too intimidating, football too brutal, and basketball takes too much time to develop the required skills. American parents in the past several decades are overworked and exhausted, but their children are overweight and neglected. Soccer is the perfect antidote to television and video games. It forces kids to run and run, and everyone can play their role, no matter how minor or irrelevant to the game. Soccer and relevision are the peanut butter and jelly of parenting.

I should know. I am an overworked teacher, with books to read and books to write, and before I put in a video for the kids to watch while I work in the evenings, they need to have spent some of their energy. Otherwise, they want to play with me! Last year all three of my kids were on three different soccer teams at the same time. My daughter is on a traveling team, and she is quite good. I had to sign a form that said, among other things, I would not do anything embarrassing to her or the team during the game. I told the coach I could not sign it. She was perplexed and worried. “Why not,” she asked? “Are you one of those parents who yells at their kids? “Not at all,” I replied, “I read books on the sidelines during the game, and this embarrasses my daughter to no end.” That is my one way of protesting the rise of this pitiful sport. Nonetheless, I must say that my kids and I come home from a soccer game a very happy family.

Stephen H. Webb is a professor of religion and philosophy at Wabash College. His recent books include American Providence and Taking Religion to School.

Feel free to move if it's not "news" ..

BleedRed

03-12-2009, 09:57 PM

wtf? is this a joke? i dont get it...

LucaGol

03-12-2009, 10:08 PM

um .... wow ... ya

Shakes McQueen

03-12-2009, 10:10 PM

I suspect it was satire. Saw this posted on a political blog I frequent, and he seemed to think it was a joke too.

- Scott

Derko

03-12-2009, 10:49 PM

Yes it is satire, with a very typical American view of things, Americans sure can be dumb!!

Cashcleaner

03-12-2009, 11:00 PM

The thing with Yanks is that they don't do satire very well. That's not a slight against their sense of humour, because they most definitely have a lot of funny people, but with their satire its often more confusing than funny. Daily Show/Colbert Report being obvious exceptions. :D

djking2

03-13-2009, 07:40 AM

rather dry humor to say the least but

"American parents in the past several decades are overworked and exhausted, but their children are overweight and neglected. Soccer is the perfect antidote to television and video games. It forces kids to run and run, and everyone can play their role, no matter how minor or irrelevant to the game. Soccer and television are the peanut butter and jelly of parenting."

that statement is bang on and exactly why marketing the MLS to suburban families is destined to fail. Look at Dick's Sporting goods Park for example. 24 pitches in one of the nicest soccer complexes on the planet all packed with tournament play throughout the season and the Rapids offer low cost tickets to participants. Yet they still only average about 12,000 per game which is no doubt fewer than are watching their kids play just outside the stadium.

The adoption of soccer by suburban america is not as much about a new sport as it is a new babysitter.

ganzo_thebest

03-13-2009, 07:46 AM

The thing with Yanks is that they don't do satire very well. That's not a slight against their sense of humour, because they most definitely have a lot of funny people, but with their satire its often more confusing than funny. Daily Show/Colbert Report being obvious exceptions. :D

I think this guy just gone BONKERS!!!.....I read the whole thing and I did not find it satirical at all....not one bit....:eek:

I just don't get these people some times!!!:(

devioustrevor

03-13-2009, 10:41 AM

I suspect it was satire. Saw this posted on a political blog I frequent, and he seemed to think it was a joke too.

- Scott

I wasn't satire. The man who wrote it is a certified right-wing nutjob. He's so far to the right that even Conservative flagbearers like The American Conservative magazine try and distance themselves from him.

The author Stephen Webb is a professor of Religion at an American University, he's also wrote a number of books like Dylan Redeemed: From Highway 61 to Saved, The Divine Voice: Christian Proclamation and the Theology of Sound, American Providence: A Nation with a Mission, Taking Religion to School: Christian Theology and Secular Education. He's currently writing a book titled Christianity and Its Enemies.

Jack

03-13-2009, 10:53 AM

TL/DR

Toronto Gunner

03-13-2009, 10:54 AM

If the low scoring games are a problem, we could make each goal worth 100 points. That would make a soccer match higher scoring than an american football match.

I am a little surprised Mr. Webb feels that women should be allowed to play soccer. Sure it burns calories, but doesn't it take away from their food cooking and baby making priorities?

Get In There

03-13-2009, 10:59 AM

Never doubt this folks, the anti-soccer* people are anti-immigration - they may be of varying degrees but it is rooted in bigotry.

* Not all people who don't like soccer, but those who go out of their way...anti-soccer.....you know, bobo mcclown and the likes.

B

Roogsy

03-13-2009, 11:17 AM

WAY over the heads of Americans.

scooter

03-13-2009, 11:20 AM

he thinks soccer is boring
what a wanker
another american who cant do satire well

boring sport --- there are none especially if you are playing

TorontoBlades

03-13-2009, 11:29 AM

every funny person in America was Canadian first :)

LucaGol

03-13-2009, 11:29 AM

Stephen Webb is going a little catch 22/Joaquin Phoenix on us.

The article is so over the top crazy .... that your rational brain wants to conclude that it has to be satire.

On the other hand, the fact that it is over the top without relenting or hint of humor (at least on a superficial level) ... makes you think that he might be serious.

If it's the first ... not many people will get it.

If it's the second ... it's insanely insulting.

TorontoBlades

03-13-2009, 11:34 AM

I think he's actually serious...calling the world's game "foreign" is an inherently self-centric premis to begin with....as you guys like to say....EPIC FAIL

Azerban

03-13-2009, 11:39 AM

yeah all foreign sports suck, not like the good old american ones like baseball (derived from rounders), american football (derived from rugby) and basketball (whoops canadian)

it's a classic example of the american philosophy that "if we're not the best in the world at something already, then why bother paying attention to it?" if they ever won the world cup, we'd see enough clubs pop up instantly to warrant four divisions in MLS.

Lucky Strike

03-13-2009, 11:46 AM

He actually was serious according to someone who checked in with the university.

P.S. Toronto invented satire! Hahaha...

sully

03-13-2009, 03:17 PM

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_H._Webb

....he defends the idea that the doctrine of providence (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divine_Providence) has been a crucial ingredient in American history and American identity...

- this guy's a fundamentalist fruitcake..among other things..

sully

03-13-2009, 03:20 PM

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_H._Webb

....he defends the idea that the doctrine of providence (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divine_Providence) has been a crucial ingredient in American history and American identity...

- this guy's a fundamentalist fruitcake..among other things..

In this article Stephen insinuates that Soccer might not only be the cause of America “dumbing” down, but also the cause of America’s competitive, or dominating nature. The rest of the world might consider Stephen to be a complete and utter fucking prick for writing said article. This article was more than likely written during the early hours of the morning whilst Stephen was off work on sick leave, due to a sprained wrist whilst masturbating over the American flag and hurling lumps of his own faeces at maps of Europe.

--from same source...very good...

nfitz

03-13-2009, 03:23 PM

You'll love his Wikipedia entry, where it notes:

On the 5th of March 2009, Stephen Webb published an article on "Soccer". Some might consider this article to be simply a scathing attack on something he has no interest in and obviously has an embedded hatred for. ... In this article Stephen insinuates that Soccer might not only be the cause of America “dumbing” down, but also the cause of America’s competitive, or dominating nature. The rest of the world might consider Stephen to be a complete and utter fucking prick for writing said article. This article was more than likely written during the early hours of the morning whilst Stephen was off work on sick leave, due to a sprained wrist whilst masturbating over the American flag and hurling lumps of his own faeces at maps of Europe."

Stryker

03-13-2009, 03:37 PM

You'll love his Wikipedia entry, where it notes:

Im gonna assume that was your work?
If so you had numerous spelling errors and the comment about religion being the "bane of humanity" pretty much puts you in the same league as the article writer.

Yet another fine display of our wonderful arrogance and ignorance as a country.

nfitz

03-13-2009, 03:48 PM

Im gonna assume that was your work?.Well you could assume that ... but that's where the ass part of assume comes into play. I've spoken in this forum against vandalising Wikipedia before; why do you think I'd do that now?

If so you had numerous spelling errors and the comment about religion being the "bane of humanity" pretty much puts you in the same league as the article writer.The intelligence and English language skills of the vanal aside - not sure how your point about religion is relevant.

What an odd post ... is that your reaction when you see graffiti scrawled on a wall; to criticise the spelling?

Stryker

03-13-2009, 03:51 PM

I like americans. They spend trillions of dollars keeping north america safe from invasion.
They're like our retarded guard dog... sure they shit on the carpet once in a while but they keep the house from getting broken into.

nfitz

03-13-2009, 03:53 PM

After they pretty near destroyed the world in their mad crusade against Muslims, and with their incompetent government creating the worldwide financial meltdown by not managing US mortgages properly, I'm not sure that sentiment holds any more.

TFC Via Buffalo

03-13-2009, 03:55 PM

I like americans. They spend trillions of dollars keeping north america safe from invasion.
They're like our retarded guard dog... sure they shit on the carpet once in a while but they keep the house from getting broken into.

Remember that we're the buffer between the Mexican drug lords getting into Canada. :)

noochie

03-13-2009, 03:55 PM

Well on his way to acheiving status of cult leader

Stryker

03-13-2009, 04:01 PM

Remember that we're the buffer between the Mexican drug lords getting into Canada. :)
Man that shit is crazy. They're not gangs anymore, they're privite armys.

Yeah. I read there is a mayor of a Mexican city who left because it was so bad and is running things from Arizona.

Cashcleaner

03-13-2009, 04:25 PM

every funny person in America was Canadian first :)

I wouldn't say that. There are a lot of very funny Yanks. 30 Rock with Tina Fey and Alec Baldwin is possibly the funniest new series I've ever seen. Also, let's remember the Simpsons and Family Guy.

I gotta give props where its due. Yanks can be very funny.

SuckerTash

03-13-2009, 04:43 PM

The thing with Yanks is that they don't do satire very well. That's not a slight against their sense of humour, because they most definitely have a lot of funny people, but with their satire its often more confusing than funny. Daily Show/Colbert Report being obvious exceptions. :D

I think both shows are also a bit overrun with Canadian and non-American-born writers. :o

Bars92

03-13-2009, 11:08 PM

Stephen H. Webb is a professor of religion and philosophy at Wabash College. This guy knows alot about real life.